Return To East Anglia

It is to the U.S. Air Force what Normandy is to the U.S. Army. The monuments are harder to find, but if you’re willing to leave the main roads, you will discover a countryside still eloquent of one of the greatest military efforts in history.

Maybe they’ll be back. Other reunion groups are coming to East Anglia. So are their sons and daughters—more every year, before it’s too late. Because the 8th Air Force didn’t build these fields to be monuments. They built them because a homicidal manic was loose in the world and had to be stopped. And when the job was done, that was that. Today the Mighty 8th is headquartered near Shreveport, Louisiana, at Barksdale Air Force Base. As for the airfields it left behind, they are at war with nature, time, and commerce, as they sink into the earth or are ripped up for salvage. One way or the other, East Anglia will reclaim its ancient title over these lands. But it won’t soon forget the 8th or the 390th.